Examining the extent to which adult health conditions meet the current population screening criteria of the UK national screening committee.

Authors

Saffana Hilmy Mahmudah, Jiwoo Sohn, Joshua Rothwell, Calm Mukichi, Ka Keat Lim

Published in

Health policy (Amsterdam, Netherlands). Volume 175. Pages 105777. Sep 20, 2026. Epub Sep 20, 2026.

Abstract

Population screening programmes are challenging to implement, especially when targeting asymptomatic adults not currently engaged in health services.
To examine the extent to which adult health conditions met the current 20 population screening criteria by the UK National Screening Committee (NSC), and how criteria ratings have changed over time.
We extracted data from public documents on the UK NSC website and archive. From this, we tabulated the criteria ratings for each condition, the frequency each criterion was reviewed and met across conditions, and how ratings changed for criteria reviewed multiple times.
Of the 34 adult conditions identified, review documents were available for 30, of which 6 were recommended for population screening, 20 were not, and 4 were dropped. Between 2000-2024, the 30 conditions were reviewed 2.2 times on average, half of them had 5-10 years between reviews. Each condition had 1-18 criteria reviewed, with criteria 1 (epidemiology), 4 (simple, safe, precise and validated test), 5 (agreed cut-off), 9 (effective intervention for those diagnosed), and 11 (evidence from randomised trials) most frequently reviewed. However, the trend varied depending on whether screening was recommended, or if a modification was considered. Criteria ratings improved in 18 instances but deteriorated in 27.
This study identified patterns in how the 20 population screening criteria are reviewed across review cycles for adult conditions. These findings offer insight into how the criteria are operationalised in practice and may inform efforts to improve transparency, consistency, and efficiency in the UK NSC review process.

PMID:
42832830
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 06 Oct 2026.

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